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Wednesday, August 31, 2016

NBC had a stellar Tuesday even by its standards, with America's Got Talent (2.4/2.7) on the rise to near season high levels and Better Late Than Never (1.6) holding up perfectly in week two. With just two weeks left in Better's short order, it's looking good for some kind of continuation.

ABC's Bachelor in Paradise (1.4) matched last week, while After Paradise (0.9) saw some improvement at 9/8c. (Is this when the new The Bachelor was announced?) It was of little help to the return of the 10/9c comedy repeats (0.4/0.4).

CBS' Zoo inched back down to 0.7, surrounded by 0.9 for NCIS and 0.6 for NCIS: New Orleans.

Fox's repeats (0.5/0.4/0.4) all matched last week, while the CW was up a tenth at least in the prelims with The Flash (R) (0.4) and MADtv (0.3).

HBO's miniseries The Night Of (0.86) was up another 25% on finale night, ending with its third consecutive new series high. It was an impressive finish, if not quite the 1.0 -> 1.6 explosion from True Detective's season one finale back in March 2014. I'd say it's enough that HBO will at least consider the possibility of bringing the brand name back for another run.

It was an underwhelming end for ABC's Sunday Fun & Games on their last evening together. With a horrible 7/6c lead-in from charity special WE Day (0.3), Celebrity Family Feud (1.0) dipped to tie its against-Olympics low, while The $100,000 Pyramid (1.0) and Match Game (0.9) tied last week's below-average results. Feud will be back here in two weeks to lead into the Miss America pageant, while the other two air their finales after the first two Mondays of Dancing with the Stars.

CBS' Big Brother (2.0) was back into the twos for the second time this week, leading into Madam Secretary (R) (0.5) and BrainDead (0.3).

NBC wrapped up a long weekend of NFL preseason football with a preliminary 1.7 average from 8:00 to 11:00. CBS' national games averaged a preliminary 1.3 on Friday and 1.0 on Saturday.

Fox's comedy repeats (1.2/1.1/0.8/0.8/0.6) got a good bit of help from the network's afternoon NFL preseason games, which overran into primetime with a 1.7 in the 7:00 half-hour.

Schedules Plus is the ultimate almanac to broadcast network primetime scheduling since 2001. It features lineups for three different parts of the year, as well as A18-49+ ratings that more fairly account for historical decline. For more on the tables and charts in Schedules Plus, see this primer.

This post covers CBS Sunday, which historically housed a regularly-scheduled movie from 9:00 to 11:00. This setup became less viable in the mid-aughts, and the network had to start putting entertainment series across the night. CBS' most successful Sunday program was The Amazing Race, which stayed in the 8:00 slot for nearly a decade, while the network has housed increasingly low-priority dramas in the later hours. See the 2017-18 Breakdown.

Sunday, August 28, 2016

The Ultimate SpotVault is a fully sortable record of every single episode in the history of a veteran series. This allows you to compare both raw numbers (total viewership and adults 18-49 rating) as well as the historical-adjusted stat A18-49+ for episodes across different seasons. This table also has the lead-in's A18-49+ for each episode, so you can see which episodes had the most and least support.

There was only one locally-broadcast Thursday night NFL preseason game, and it started at 10:00 ET. So the adjustments may not be as severe as other preseason Thursdays, though every network had at least some minor preemptions:

ABC featured the original return of BattleBots (0.8) at what would be a pretty typical rating if it holds, plus repeats of The $100,000 Pyramid (0.7) and Match Game (0.8).

And the CW had Legends of Tomorrow (R) (0.2) and Beauty and the Beast (0.2).

Meanwhile, NBC had the season's first national NFL preseason game in broadcast primetime on Thursday, averaging a 1.6/1.8/1.5 in the prelims. Presumably the Olympics had something to do with none of these happening to date, but this week there will be one national game in primetime each day through Sunday.

Schedules Plus is the ultimate almanac to broadcast network primetime scheduling since 2001. It features lineups for three different parts of the year, as well as A18-49+ ratings that more fairly account for historical decline. For more on the tables and charts in Schedules Plus, see this primer.

This post covers ABC Sunday. This night was the crown jewel of ABC's magical 2004-05 season, with reality sensation Extreme Makeover: Home Edition leading into megahit drama Desperate Housewives, and future megahit Grey's Anatomy joining them later in the season. Home Edition and Housewives joined fall 2006 drama Brothers and Sisters to create an intact four-hour lineup for a whooping five years. An heir apparent emerged in Housewives' final season, the fairy-tale drama Once Upon a Time. But finding a long-term companion for Once has proven difficult, and the numbers have gotten more dire as cable giants have taken center stage on Sunday night. See the 2017-18 Breakdown.

Thursday, August 25, 2016

A really strong post-Olympics week continued for the unscripted staples on broadcast. It may have helped that NBC moved its live America's Got Talent (2.1) from the 8:00 logjam into the 9:00 hour, though it still had a recap (1.4) do nice business at 8/7c. Talent led into an above-average showing from The Night Shift (1.1) at 10/9c.

On CBS, Big Brother (2.0) broke a two for just the second time this season, while its lead-outs Criminal Minds (R) (0.7) and American Gothic (0.5) had tiny upticks as well.

And Fox's MasterChef (1.2/1.4) had its own high-end night as it returned from hiatus; the 9:00 episode would represent a new season high, assuming it is counted separately in finals.

On ABC, it was The Goldbergs' turn for a Wednesday comedy marathon (0.9/0.8/0.8/0.8), and it saw a pretty big uptick over what Fresh Off the Boat and The Real O'Neals did the last couple weeks against the Olympics. Modern Family (0.9) and Black-ish (0.7) were also improved in the 10:00 hour.

And the CW had more Penn and Teller: Fool Us (0.4) and Whose Line Is It Anyway? (0.4 original/0.4 repeat).

Wednesday, August 24, 2016

The post-Olympics return of America's Got Talent (2.2/2.5) didn't get the bounce that American Ninja Warrior saw on Monday, but it was still another stellar point in a stellar season. And it helped 10/9c reality series Better Late Than Never (1.6) to a nice start at 10/9c. This was a tenth better than where Maya and Marty opened earlier in the summer, though they may end up tying after finals.

The other big four originals, from ABC's Bachelor in Paradise (1.4) and After Paradise (0.7) to CBS' Zoo (0.8), were up a tenth as the Olympics competition cleared out. However, ABC did bomb out in its usually troubled 10/9c hour with a The View 20th anniversary special (0.4).

On the CW, MADtv couldn't join in on the general upward momentum, staying mired at 0.2. Fox's repeats of Brooklyn Nine-Nine (0.5), New Girl (0.4) and Lucifer (0.4) all improved by a tenth from the rough numbers they put up against the Olympics.

AMC's Fear the Walking Dead returned for the back half of season two with a 1.62 on Sunday. This was a double-digit step down from the show's previous series low (the 1.88 season 2A finale). It was barely half of the season two premiere (3.08) in April. And it was less than a third of the show's 4.93 series premiere, which was just one calendar year ago! But despite the increasingly negative trend, the show is still dominating the cable landscape rather easily. That's really just another testament to how incredibly far The Walking Dead mothership has separated from everything else in its space.

Tuesday, August 23, 2016

Life after the Olympics began on NBC with a very stout return from American Ninja Warrior (1.8/2.1), which has at least tied and maybe beaten its previous season high. It was also at least three tenths above its final pre-Olympics episode. Running Wild (1.3) also looked solid at 10/9c, improving by two tenths on its Monday rating before the Olympics.

The end of the Olympics was also good news for ABC, where Bachelor in Paradise (1.6) surged to its own new season high in the first two hours. It had about the same Plus as last season's 1.8 high (which happened to occur on this evening a year ago). At 10/9c, Mistresses (0.6) got a minor rebound but was still thoroughly unimpressive.

Fox was the loser among the original networks with So You Think You Can Dance (0.7/0.6), back from two weeks off and at best tying its pre-Olympics level.

CBS had more comedy repeats (0.8/0.8/0.8/0.8) and Scorpion (0.6), and the CW had more Supergirl (0.3/0.2).

Schedules Plus is the ultimate almanac to broadcast network primetime scheduling since 2001. It features lineups for three different parts of the year, as well as A18-49+ ratings that more fairly account for historical decline. For more on the tables and charts in Schedules Plus, see this primer.

This post covers CW Friday. Originally home to the WWE's SmackDown! franchise, CW Friday has often been a dumping ground since then. The network infamously exiled staples Smallville and Supernatural to the night at the height of Dawn Ostroff's obsession with courting the young female demos. In 2015-16, the network saw its best Friday ratings since those shows left, moving Thursday fixture The Vampire Diaries and spin-off The Originals. See the 2016-17 Breakdown.

The Summer Olympics sputtered to the finish with a very weak 4.1 demo for the Closing Ceremony on Sunday, well less than half of the 9.2 for 2012's final night. Prior to 2008, the network hadn't really gotten a lot of added interest in the Closing Ceremony. But there were massive bounces in 2008 and 2012, making this return to 2004-esque behavior result in a really awful trend.

Remarkably, that meant the Sunday 10:30 episode of The Voice (2.7) actually had a smaller lead-in than Superstore (3.0) did on Friday. The only good news for Voice is that it started right at 10:30, so it shouldn't get much worse than this after finals.

NBC's weakness was welcome news for the ABC game show lineup, where The $100,000 Pyramid (1.0) and Match Game (0.9) both had two-tenth rises from last week's black hole results, and Celebrity Family Feud (1.1) was also up a tenth. Last week was so bad that they're still not back to 'normal,' but this week at least brought a little hope that they could get back there when the Olympic interference is totally gone next week.

Big Brother hasn't cared much about Olympics competition either way, and it stayed at 1.8 again this Sunday, while BrainDead had another 0.3. Fox offered up another round of comedy repeats (0.4/0.5/0.6/0.5/0.6/0.4).

Schedules Plus is the ultimate almanac to broadcast network primetime scheduling since 2001. It features lineups for three different parts of the year, as well as A18-49+ ratings that more fairly account for historical decline. For more on the tables and charts in Schedules Plus, see this primer.

This post covers CW Sunday, a night of programming that has literally gone extinct. While UPN didn't nationally program Sunday night, the WB did so pretty successfully with genre drama Charmed.
So the powers that be tried to keep the night alive after the CW
merger. Unfortunately, the un-cancelled 7th Heaven had nowhere near the power of Charmed in the inaugural season. And things got exponentially more embarrassing in the next two seasons. First, they had megaflop family drama Life is Wild,
then they sold the night to Media Rights Capital, whose two dramas were
as weak as anything we've ever seen on a big-five network. Starting in
2009-10, the CW gave up on trying to nationally program the night and
gave it back to the affiliates. See the 2015-16 breakdown.

NBC aired its first piece of 2016-17 programming with a 10:30 preview of sophomore sitcom Superstore (3.3), leading out of two and a half hours of primetime Summer Olympics coverage (which averaged a 4.8 overall, including a 5.5 in the 10:00 half-hour). If it holds in finals, this would be a rather solid 60%ish retention. But it didn't start until a few minutes after 10:30, so it may be adjusting down a bit.

Comparisons are tough because all the other recent lead-ins were of very different sizes. In 2012, Go On had a 5.6 and Animal Practice a 4.1, but they both had over 9.0 lead-ins. The 2014 Winter Games saw previews for About a Boy (2.2) and Growing Up Fisher (2.0), but their lead-ins were only in the 3.0ish range.

It was a busier than usual Friday elsewhere as well, though these numbers are subject to more local NFL-related adjustments:

CBS was the best of the rest with a special Friday Big Brother (1.5) and drama repeats (0.8/0.8);

ABC had its usual Friday originals What Would You Do? (0.7) and 20/20 (0.7);

And the CW wrapped up the three-night run of My Last Days (0.2), leading out of Masters of Illusion repeats (0.2/0.2).

The Ultimate SpotVault is a fully sortable record of every single episode in the history of a veteran series. This allows you to compare both raw numbers (total viewership and adults 18-49 rating) as well as the historical-adjusted stat A18-49+ for episodes across different seasons. This table also has the lead-in's A18-49+ for each episode, so you can see which episodes had the most and least support.

Friday, August 19, 2016

FINALS UPDATE:Summer Olympics (6.1) adjusted up (by 0.4, since the 8:00 half-hour was excluded in finals), making for the best 2012-to-2016 trend of the Games. Everything else adjusted down; see below.

WHAT MATTERS:

NBC had its final Thursday of Rio Summer Olympics (5.7), preliminarily down by just 19% from the last Thursday in 2012.

Please be wary of preliminary numbers on the other networks due to another round of NFL preseason-related local preemptions:

Most shows were on the rise against a weaker second week of Summer Olympics action. For the shows that really got slammed last week, Starz' Survivor's Remorse (0.36) and USA's Suits (0.42), there was some recovery this time, but still not all the way back to what seemed like the norm beforehand.

Thursday, August 18, 2016

The Summer Olympics took a big dip to a 5.8, which would be the Games' lowest rating to date if it can't get an upward adjustment. It's also down an awful 38% from the final Wednesday in 2012. This kind of drop usually happens in the second week, but the 2012 Games were able to hold it off till Thursday, making for a terrible comparison on this night.

CBS' Big Brother (1.8) and American Gothic (0.4) both matched last week, and ABC had a two-hour marathon of The Real O'Neals (0.5/0.5/0.5/0.5) which did a little worse than last week's Fresh Off the Boat marathon (0.6/0.6/0.6/0.5). O'Neals lost head-to-head with another two hours of MasterChef repeats on Fox (0.7/0.6).

The CW went with Penn and Teller: Fool Us (0.3) and the little-watched opening night of its three-part documentary My Last Days (0.2). Days dipped to 0.1 in the 9:30 half-hour, making it a real threat to hit the network's first 0.1 of the summer on Thursday or Friday (assuming no downward adjustment to this rating).

Schedules Plus is the ultimate almanac to broadcast network primetime scheduling since 2001. It features lineups for three different parts of the year, as well as A18-49+ ratings that more fairly account for historical decline. For more on the tables and charts in Schedules Plus, see this primer.

This post covers Fox Friday. This night has been pretty rough for Fox through most of the A18-49+ era, but it's had some brushes with respectability in the last few years thanks to Gordon Ramsay series. First, it was Kitchen Nightmares in 2011, joining the sci-fi drama Fringe which initially made a surprisingly decent transition to the night. And Fox has gotten even better results in recent years from the Junior edition of summer staple MasterChef. See the 2017-18 Breakdown.

Wednesday, August 17, 2016

The Summer Olympics (6.8) were over three points weaker than last Tuesday, and some of that audience seemed to funnel back into the competing originals. ABC's Bachelor in Paradise (1.3) was up two tenths, lowly post-show After Paradise (0.6) picked up a tenth, and Zoo (0.7) on CBS bounced back from last week's low.

On the final night of women's gymnastics coverage, the Summer Olympics' preliminary 6.8 would represent one of the Rio Games' worst 2012-to-2016 trends, down 29% from the final Tuesday in London.

In repeat land, the CBS NCIS franchise repeats (0.8/0.6) also inched up surrounding Zoo. ABC 10/9c comedy repeats (0.4/0.3) and the Fox lineup (0.4/0.3/0.3) were low again, while the CW snuck in a repeat of MADtv (0.3) alongside The Flash (0.3).

Tuesday, August 16, 2016

Monday featured another duel between the Summer Olympics (6.9) and ABC's Bachelor in Paradise (1.3), which was down a tenth in its second Monday episode. At 10/9c, Mistresses matched last week's 0.5. For the Olympics, this was down a point from Sunday, but 2012 took a much steeper drop; the night was 17% below the corresponding evening in 2012, which would be the best trend of the Games to date.

Repeats elsewhere: CBS had comedies (0.8/0.8/0.8/0.7) and Scorpion (0.6), while Fox's So You Think You Can Dance (0.4) narrowly edged the CW's Supergirl (0.3/0.3).

Schedules Plus is the ultimate almanac to broadcast network primetime scheduling since 2001. It features lineups for three different parts of the year, as well as A18-49+ ratings that more fairly account for historical decline. For more on the tables and charts in Schedules Plus, see this primer.

This post covers NBC Friday. Like most NBC nights, it was dominant at the start of the A18-49+ era, with Law and Order: SVU putting up Friday numbers the likes of which have never been seen since. There's been a lot of mediocrity since SVU left the night, but newsmagazine Dateline and the surprise fall 2011 success Grimm have kept the network from falling off the map completely. See the 2017-18 Breakdown.

FINALS UPDATE:Summer Olympics (7.9) adjusted up while America's Funniest Home Videos (R) (0.5) and Celebrity Family Feud (1.0) and The $100,000 Pyramid (0.8) and Match Game (0.7) adjusted down.

WHAT MATTERS:

Against the Summer Olympics, it was a rough original return for ABC's Sunday Fun & Games, as Celebrity Family Feud (1.1) tied its low point from the 4th of July Weekend, while The $100,000 Pyramid (0.9) and Match Game (0.8) absolutely crashed, going three tenths behind their previous series lows! They were all absolutely routed by Big Brother (1.8), which had a two-tenth uptick on CBS and beat its last pre-Olympic Sunday episode.

As for the Summer Olympics (7.8), the four-hour 7.8 average would be down 24% from the corresponding 2012 night. It's possible the 7:00 half-hour could be excluded in finals (as happened on this night in 2012), which could make the trend even better.

Sunday, August 14, 2016

The Ultimate SpotVault is a fully sortable record of every single episode in the history of a veteran series. This allows you to compare both raw numbers (total viewership and adults 18-49 rating) as well as the historical-adjusted stat A18-49+ for episodes across different seasons. This table also has the lead-in's A18-49+ for each episode, so you can see which episodes had the most and least support.

Friday, August 12, 2016

FINALS UPDATE:Summer Olympics (9.1) adjusted up while literally everything else adjusted down due to local preemptions. Check the table below.

WHAT MATTERS:

The Summer Olympics (8.9) picked back up by over a point with the return of women's gymnastics on Thursday. But once again, this path was also seen in the last couple Olympics, so it stayed on the downside by nearly 25% vs. London in 2012.

Thursday also featured the return of the NFL preseason, usually a source of rampant local preemptions, so it's probably good to wait till finals before saying much on the rest of the networks.

CBS was the only network other than NBC that was really trying, with its comedy repeats (1.4/1.2), Big Brother (1.8) and Code Black (0.7) repeat.

Elsewhere, ABC had summer unscripted repeats (0.7/0.6/0.5), Fox had drama repeats (0.6/0.6) and the CW had Legends of Tomorrow (R) (0.4) and Beauty and the Beast (0.3).

Not many of the top broadcast series have had to face off with the Summer Olympics, but pretty much everything on cable has stayed on. There seems to be some general impact; the vast majority of series have been down, with the average week-to-week trend over the last week at around -9%. Anything that goes a long way from that average is likely just random noise, but there have been some surprising outliers:

Thursday, August 11, 2016

It was another very resilient night for Big Brother (1.8) in its second round against the Summer Olympics, matching last Wednesday. But American Gothic (0.4) fell to a new low at 10/9c, leading out of a Criminal Minds repeat (0.6).

With no women's gymnastics, opening Wednesday of the Rio Olympics dipped to a preliminary 7.6, its lowest rating since Saturday. A similar drop happened in the last couple Olympics, so the 2012 comparisons stayed in the low -20%'s, which has basically been the case since Sunday.

The CW had the only entertainment originals outside of CBS with Penn and Teller: Fool Us (0.4) and Whose Line Is It Anyway? (0.3). ABC started its comedy repeat night (0.6/0.6/0.6/0.5/0.5/0.5) with a two-hour Fresh Off the Boat marathon, while Fox put MasterChef (0.6/0.6) on Olympics hiatus.

Schedules Plus is the ultimate almanac to broadcast network primetime scheduling since 2001. It features lineups for three different parts of the year, as well as A18-49+ ratings that more fairly account for historical decline. For more on the tables and charts in Schedules Plus, see this primer.

This post covers CBS Friday, yet another CBS lineup that was off the map at the start of the A18-49+ era. It was brought to life with the big 2005 launches of Numb3rs and Ghost Whisperer, which combined to book-end the night for a half-decade. Since their departures, the network has slowly worked its way back to that level and eventually even higher, with the one constant being the crime drama Blue Bloods. See the 2017-18 Breakdown.